A Superior Court Judge in Fulton County, Georgia, has struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban, deemed the LIFE Act. The procedure is now legal for up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.
According to NBC News, Judge Robert McBurney struck down the legislation on Sept. 30. In his ruling, he determined that their judicial system’s meaning of “liberty” must also apply to a woman’s bodily autonomy.
“Our higher courts’ interpretations of ‘liberty’ demonstrate that liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights the power of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it, and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices,” McBurney detailed.
He deemed that the law’s “extreme narrowing” of time prevents most women from taking action. This is often due to the six-week window not allowing many women to know if they are pregnant.
“[The law’s] extreme narrowing of the window of time within which women have the legal ability to end a pregnancy from roughly twenty weeks (i.e., viability) down to a mere six weeks, a point at which many — if not most — women are completely unaware or at best unsure if they are pregnant,” wrote McBurney.
Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the LIFE ACT in 2019. Despite legal challenges, it took effect in July 2022, aided by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade a month prior.
McBurney initially ruled the abortion ban unconstitutional that same year. He did so while overseeing a lawsuit against the legislation. The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and other plaintiffs made the legal filing in 2019.
However, the state Supreme Court rejected his decision. Upon returning the case to his desk, he affirmed his ruling.
“For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability. It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could — or should — force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another,” he wrote.
In the judge’s view, only when the fetus “reaches viability” can the state intervene.
He added, “That power is not, however, unlimited. When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability, when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then — and only then — may society intervene.”
The plaintiffs responded to the ruling in their favor while also acknowledging the women who fatally suffered from the legislation.
“We are encouraged that a Georgia court has ruled for bodily autonomy. At the same time, we can’t forget that every day the ban has been in place has been a day too long—and we have felt the dire consequences with the devastating and preventable deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller,” wrote Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong Women, in a statement.
However, Kemp’s team denounced the decision and said they would continue to “fight” for the LIFE Act.
“Once again, the will of Georgians and their representatives have been overruled by the personal beliefs of one judge.
Protecting the lives of the most vulnerable among us is one of our most sacred responsibilities, and Georgia will continue to be a place where we fight for the lives of the unborn,” Kemp’s spokesman, Garrison Douglas, said in a statement.Moreover, opposing lawmakers consider the Life Act’s regulations “fully constitutional,” adding that an appeal is imminent.
“We believe Georgia’s LIFE Act is fully constitutional, and we will immediately appeal the lower court’s decision,” shared a spokesperson for the state’s Attorney General Christopher Carr.